Today’s savvy Wild West fortune hunters don’t pan for gold, they search for vintage Levi’s, cowboy kitsch and other antiques/collectibles that bring a high price at the auction house. “Thar’s gold in them hills” nowadays might well refer to old railroad relics or dusty denim.

“Ghost Town Gold” launches a six-episode run on Discovery Channel Thursday, locally at 8 p.m., scanning the Wild West for collectibles. Brit Eaton (pictured) and Scott Glaves are history buffs and treasure hunters with an eye for Old West valuables. Their original pitch for this series: “Antiques Roadshow” meets “Croc Hunter.”

At his warehouse in Durango, Eaton has more than a million artifacts including thousand-dollar whiskey bottles, Old West revolvers and one-of-a-kind hand-forged branding irons. His greatest finds, he says, are “when you find a crossover item, something collectible on at least two fronts.” One of his biggest: Spanish-American War military trousers made by Levi Strauss, ordered by Montana infantrymen. He bought them for $10,000. Levi Strauss offered $25,000. “That filled in a piece of history,” he says.

Joanne Ostrow has been watching TV since before "reality" required quotation marks. "Hill Street Blues" was life-changing. If Dickens, Twain or Agatha Christie were alive today, they'd be writing for television. And proud of it.